The Couple at No. 9 was a fiendishly good read. It was fast-paced, and thrilling, with a great cast of characters.
The premise is simple enough; a young couple moves into a cottage and discovers bodies in the yard. As the investigation commences, it unearths many family secrets along the way.
The characters in The Couple at No. 9 were wonderfully developed, and the different POVs worked really well. Switching POV can be a hard thing to get right, but Claire Douglas nailed it. Information was revealed by the right character at just the right time to keep the pacing up, and the mystery was obscured just long enough that it didn't feel like it was a twist given for the sake of it.
While The Couple at No. 9 gives the impression of having plot twists, nothing in the book happens that you can't see coming from a mile away. Usually, I'd say this detracts from a novel, but in this case, it helped the story keep up a page-turning pace. Being able to put the mystery together and have it resolve as expected actually made me more invested in the characters, as I wanted to see how that mystery would be resolved. And it had just the right amount of family drama without it getting too overwhelming.
I devoured this novel in two nights, so I definitely enjoyed it. It was a great, fun read. The kind of book that works as a perfect palette cleanser, and reminds you that reading can be enjoyable.
Reviewed by pamela on